take that

I’m oddly captivated with that horrific news story about the baby who was kidnapped from her mother while still in utero. The mother died. The baby is doing well. Well only because she can’t yet grasp how she came into this world. To be born into such violence and lose your mother to it, that is a burden to bare. That is the beginning of a book. Some hero tale where this little girl goes on to save the world. Something where she has a handful of unique talents, like smarts and intuition and a black belt in karate by the tender age of 5. Something where she has a group of ragtag friends who are devoted to her journey and possess their own special blend of cleverness and cunning. They journey off to make the world free of evil, despite her being born of it.

She will have to be raised by people who don’t love her as they should. Who make her do chores and never buy her any toys. People who told her that her mother abandoned her on their doorstep. She will have only a few close friends, but those friends will be like family to her. They stick together though thick and thin. She will be happy in spite of her circumstance because she knows there is something great brewing inside of her. She will excel at most everything, except she will lack one thing. Perhaps the ability to win at chess. And then winning at chess will be what she has to do to save the world.

Then one day, she’ll get a letter or a visit from a stranger who she immediately takes a shine to. This mysterious stranger will tell her the truth of how she was born. That the woman who killed her mother was really trying to kill her, but she survived and now is the only person who can stop evil from taking over the world. There would have to be some kind of amulet. She would need to go get it. Or keep it safe. And once that was done, fight the ring leader of the evildoers and save the world.

She would have to venture into a secret world unknown to us. A world where there is a raging battle of good vs. evil. Where each day is fought for. Each deed fought for. A world that is in control of us like puppets. We fall to their whims and evil is perched to win the game. But they are missing the amulet to complete the set, and they smell that it is afoot.

So this little girl has to keep the amulet safe and get it to the kindly old man who is the leader of the good. This amulet will tilt the scales and make the world safer, for a while. So she gathers her friends and starts on this journey. She only has a ragged map and a vague idea of where she needs to go. She will find her way. She will be betrayed by a friend. Her mentor will die. She will have moments where she thinks she can see her mom, where she thinks her mom has helped her, only to find out that it was her who saved her. She will think of giving up. She will think that this journey is too much for her, but she will press on with the support of her friends. She will engage in a battle of wills and smarts and intuition with a evil sage much older and wiser than her. She will think she has won when she will come upon a final game. A maze of sorts. With pieces to move and strategy to be strategized. Her math whiz friend will whisper in her ear that it’s just like chess excitedly, not knowing she has never won a game of chess in her whole life. She’ll sit down at the board and play this evil mastermind for fate of the world. Her winning move will be linked to something she learned on this journey. There will be a flashback to a wise word about how evil always plays to win, only looks out for itself. So making a move that is kind or strives to tie the game instead of win it throws off the sage’s plan. Makes her win the game. Saves the world.

But it won’t get her mom back. But she’ll also learn her mom has been with her the whole time. The kindly old man who leads the good will fill in all the gaps in the story. Everything will be clear. She’ll understand her place in the world and why what happened, happened. She’ll find a new home with people who love her.

Her world will be saved as well.

The end.